Casella
Elegia eroica 16'
Chopin
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor 38'
interval
Franck
Symphonic Variations 16'
Saint-Saëns
Symphony No. 3 in C minor, 'Organ' 35'
Benjamin Grosvenor piano
David Goode organ
BBC Philharmonic
Gianandrea Noseda conductor
Casella's haunting 'Heroic Elegy', dedicated to the 'unknown soldier', continues our series of works written in the shadow of the First World War.
Former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Benjamin Grosvenor, still only 22, returns for his fourth Proms appearance in Chopin's lyrical but virtuosic First Piano Concerto; he is also the soloist in Franck's Symphonic Variations – once a Proms favourite (performed here on 60 occasions), though it has been largely absent since the 1960s.
Saint-Saëns's 'Organ' Symphony continues the French theme. 'With it I have given all I could give,' the composer observed. 'What I did I could not achieve again.'